The present invention relates to a system and method that facilitate development of computer games and more particularly, a system and method that facilitate development of computer games that include representations of geographic areas, including such features as the road networks in the geographic areas.
Computer games have developed in sophistication and commercial importance. Improvements in computer hardware and software have enabled computer games to provide realistic graphics and sound. With these advances, computer game users have come to expect that games meet high standards for richness and attention to detail. Some computer games, such as road race games, represent real world places as part of the playing scenarios of the games. With these types of games, users expect convincing depictions of the real world with attention to accuracy and detail.
Computer game developers have recognized the need to provide realistic depictions of actual real world places in computer games. This has placed a burden on computer game developers to obtain the data needed to portray geographic places with realistic detail and accuracy. The collection of such detailed geographic data about real world roads, places, etc., is time-consuming and expensive. Further, the collection of detailed real world data diverts the resources of computer game developers away from other important aspects of computer game creation, such as characters, story lines, and strategies. Thus, there exists a need to facilitate the collection and use of geographic data by game developers.
Another consideration related to the development of computer games that depict geographic places relates to providing a variety of different locales. Even if a computer game developer collects all the data needed to depict a particular real world locale (such as a city) with the richness and detail expected by game players, the game play scenario is limited to only that particular locale. This may limit the appeal of the computer game. Therefore, it may be advantageous for a computer game developer to provide games that depict a variety of different real world locales. However, if a computer game developer wants to provide a game with different real world locales, the developer is required to collect geographic data for each different locale, thus incurring further considerable expense.
Still another consideration related to the development of computer games that depict geographic places concerns providing games on a variety of different hardware platforms. There exist a variety of different hardware platforms on which computer games are played. These different hardware platforms have different resources, such as memory, processor speed, user interface, etc. In addition, there are multi-player games that can involve a variety of different platforms intended to work together. Developing games that utilize the available resources of different computer platforms also presents a challenge to game developers.
Accordingly, it is an objective to provide ways to make computer games that represent actual real world places.
It is another objective to facilitate the representation of actual physical real world places or imaginary places in computer games.